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Show REFORMS AND REFORMERS. Vc have little patience with a man who poses as a professional reformer, who makes it a business of being good. Men who do this always impress, us as not being entirely sincere. The man we admire (j. most is the one who goes through life carrying his burdens, doing his share of useful labor and producing a fair proportion of material wealth to the world. We may be wrong yet our belief in the survival of the fittest is sufficiently strong to encourage us in thinking that that which is good and beneficial will eventually win. We do not have much faith in a virtue that must be guarded with a shot gun to keep it from going wrong. Wc don't give the man incarcerated in the penitentiary sun-rounded sun-rounded by bars and stone walls any credit for being good, but the man who is out in the open surrounded by inducements and tempta- tions who does about the right thing appeals to us as being the kind (I cf a man worth while. At present there is an agitation for compulsory prohibition in this ,a and other states. With prohibition we have no war, but wc would rather have our doubts about the efficacy of .that cause to accom- plish the ends aimed at. History of this movement where it has been practised does not preach very eloquently in its favor. As we said before, wc have no war with prohibition, but wc arc a trifle prejudiced preju-diced against the theory of making men good by force and law. That is, we are not prejudiced against making them good by law if such a thing were possible, but we have an idea that if you could legislate men into being angels that we have enough laws now on the statute books to make men well nigh perfect. Some of the advocates of this system deserve credit for suggesting suggest-ing remedies that appeal to us as being more or less childish; for in- .stance, the idea of preventing men from doing things before or after certain fixed hours stVikc us as being little short of inconsistent. If it is wrong to take a drink five minutes after twelve, it is equally wrong to do that same thing five minutes before twelve. Well, that is enough about this for the present. |